Swaggart Ministries Halts $12.9 Million Construction Program

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) _ Jimmy Swaggart Ministries has stopped work on a $12.9 million construction program that was begun shortly before he was defrocked by the Assemblies of God.

″We’re trusting sometime next year - in the middle of the year or late spring - to get back (to construction). Those are hopes,″ said board member and spokesman Bill Treeby of New Orleans.

The six abandoned contracts include an $11 million dormitory at Jimmy Swaggart Bible College; nearly $860,000 for road work; $806,000 for landscaping and a mechanical building; and $156,000 for electrical work.

Treeby said recently that the ministry has settled all claims with contractors.

The Assemblies of God dismissed Swaggart in February after he refused a rehabilitation program they ordered. The order was the result of Swaggart’s teary confession that he had committed unspecified sins.